Internet extends community news reach, with big results: Pam Hardy

The power of the Internet once again came through in a positive way for me recently — compensating for some of the negative feelings I have toward the medium that frequently can be so offensive (and also threatens my livelihood).

It was the day after Thanksgiving when I answered the phone in our nearly empty office and learned about a stunningly successful lawsuit by a former Youngstown insurance agency owner against the major carrier that had destroyed her business and caused her to lose her home.

Sun Newspapers doesn’t cover any community near Youngstown, but we do cover the Cleveland suburb where the law firm representing the plaintiff is based. I wrote the story about the attorney and posted it Nov. 30. The print article appeared in early December.

Shortly after the new year, a forwarded email arrived in my inbox. A woman in Lakeland, Fla. had read the story online. The former insurance agency principal said exactly the same thing had happened to her, with a different company, and she wanted to contact the attorney to possibly join a class-action lawsuit. Not only had the carrier destroyed the caller’s agency, she said, but similar actions caused an agent she knew to commit suicide.

In mid-December, another phone call alerted us to a protest rally staged outside a company in the area that had laid off more than 150 workers due to the outcome of the presidential election, using the form of a prayer to God to convey the news to staffers.

Our community reporter covered the protest and interviewed the organizers. When she blogged the story, it gave a larger voice to the small protest group and placed the account of their local action alongside the national and international media reports about the politically motivated layoffs.

The first serendipitous phone call showing our online reach came my way in 2011. An online news brief from the Sun Post about a veterans award event in Independence had led to the introduction of a father in Berea to the 44-year-old daughter in Tennessee he never knew he had. Our small story, written for a suburban community paper, mentioned the father’s nickname — and that provided the missing clue for his daughter, after years of fruitless online searching. The reunion was happy and their lives were changed forever.

Very few of our print or online stories lead to such dramatic results as these. More often, the online version gives exposure for a local charitable event, group meeting or high school activity to a wider audience than the print version can, because of circulation boundaries.

We can’t measure exactly what results when online stories on our local community pages are recommended or tweeted — but we hope those actions keep happening, every day, because that is a primary way your Sun News reporters are measured in terms of their future employment. Keep those page views coming!

As far as posting online comments on Sun News stories, that is the right of any reader who signs up at Cleveland.com and agrees to the terms. Freedom of expression is essential; I can’t expect those with different opinions to be prohibited from saying what they think. However, the difference between the material we post or print in the paper, compared with anonymous comments saying some of the vile and/or violent things they do, is that those publishing under real names are held accountable for their words.

I’ve said before that I have a love/hate relationship with the Internet. Nearly instant access to information that used to be slow, difficult, or impossible to find is a wonderful thing, as is the speed of communication — in theory, anyway, since trying to scroll down an Internet page designed for a mobile device, while using an old desktop, redefines the meaning of the term “glacial pace” and has forced me to develop meditation techniques.

On the flip side, I’m bothered that so-called news websites feature so much sports, celebrities, crime and gossip, at the expense of vital national and international news.

It’s easy to skip sections you don’t want to read in a print newspaper. Devoted scrapbookers or digital holdouts can clip and save articles to show their friends or keep for posterity. Newspaper readers have the opportunity for a longer, more personal relationship with a print story that even transfers well to its online afterlife. It’s tangible, and somehow more real than unedited online posts.

I love newspapers, as many of you do. I hope they disappear later, rather than sooner. And I hope that for at least several years, both readers and media decision-makers will be aware of the valuable relationship between the power of the printed word and the long reach of its electronic fraternal twin.

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